Benadir Society
The Benadir Society ( Italian Società Anonima Commerciale Italiana del Benadir , English Benadir Company ) was an Italian company based in Milan , which was entrusted by the Kingdom of Italy from 1895 to 1905 with the administration of Italian Somaliland . For this purpose, the company was given extensive sovereign rights such as customs , tax and coin shelves . Due to annual financial contributions from the Italian state, the company made small profits, but due to internal disputes among the administrative officials and a lack of success in the fight against the slave trade in Somalia, the Italian government withdrew the company from the company in 1905 and placed the colony under its direct administration.
prehistory
 
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The administrative area of the Benadir Society on the Somali coast extended almost over the entire later Italian Somaliland
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The places Kismajo , Brava , Merca , Mogadishu and Warsheikh had been exclaves of the Sultanate of Zanzibar from about 1840 under the direct rule of local princes or governors ( wali ), who owed tribute to the Sultan. They formed the so-called Benadir , suggesting Kiswahili harbor towns means. Further north were the sultanates of Obbia and Mijertein in what is now Puntland .
The Italian consul on Zanzibar, Vincenzo Filonardi , had lived in East Africa since the opening of the Suez Canal and made a fortune by trading in cloves . In the mid-1880s, he supported Italian colonial interests in acquiring the ports on the Somali coast, in which the German Empire (see German Somali Coast ) and Great Britain were also interested. Filonardi initially tried to get the port places ceded by the Sultan of Zanzibar. When the negotiations were delayed and a revolt broke out in the Sultanate of Obbia, he took the opportunity and concluded a protectorate treaty with Sultan Yussuf Ali of Obbia on April 7, 1889, which was followed a few days later by a similar treaty with the Sultan of Mijertein. On August 3, 1889, Filonardi and the Imperial British East Africa Company , which operated in what is now Kenya , agreed on a border treaty and four weeks later Khalifa ibn Said , the Sultan of Zanzibar, also agreed to the treaties. However, the Italian parliament rejected a direct administration of Somalia, which stretched from the Juba River to Cape Guardafui , and a change of government in Italy delayed the ratification of the Protectorate Treaties and the fixing of an annual compensation payment for the Sultan of Zanzibar.
The Filonardi Society
It was not until 1892 that the compensation payments to the Sultan of Zanzibar were fixed at 200,000 Indian rupees for the first year and 160,000 rupees in the following years, and Italy was able to take control of Benadir. Since the Italian government did not want to administer the protectorate itself, Filonardi founded a company based in Rome ( V. Filonardi e Co ) to take on this task. Italy paid the society 350,000 lire annually to support it . The society was entitled to all customs revenues, but it was obliged to stop the slave trade. On September 21, 1891, all wali and local sultans were invited to Zanzibar for a ceremony documenting the takeover of Italian society.
Filonardi's first measures, which transferred ownership of undeveloped land to the crown and thus de facto to his society, or the exclusive right to logging, brought him into conflicts with local rulers and the old Arab elites in Benadir. The resistance against the new colonial rulers began almost immediately; as early as November 1893 there were the first armed clashes between Somalis and Italians. Filonardi had not anticipated any costs for a military enforcement of rule and demanded further subsidies from the Italian state and a reduction in compensation payments for the Sultan of Zanzibar. The Italian foreign minister refused to pay and asked Filonardi to resign from his post as consul general.
Lower than expected income and additional expenditures for military security led to financial losses for the company from 1894 onwards. In addition, the new consul in Zanzibar, Antonio Cecchi , and his nephew, the Milanese industrialist Giorgio Mylius, discredited the Filonardi society with the Italian government. Cecchi and Mylius had a plan to bring Benadir under direct Italian control. Since the Italian government refused to take over the government directly after the defeat at Adua in 1896, but did not want to give up Somalia for military and prestige reasons, Mylius and Cecchi founded the Benadir Society in Rome to take over the business of Filonardi.
The administration of Somalia by the Benadir Society
As a result of successful lobbying against the Filonardi Society, management was transferred to the Benadir Society in April 1896. The society was under a royal charter , with which it received the customs, mail and coin shelves as well as extensive police and judicial powers. The Benadir Society also received land ownership of undeveloped land and the mining rights for mineral resources. The annual subsidies of the Italian state were to be 400,000 lire for the first 12 years and then 300,000 lire. In return, the company had to undertake to stop the slave and arms trade and to hoist the Italian flag. All directors had to be Italian and at least two thirds of the capital had to be provided by Italian investors. This contract had a minimum term of 25 years, the Benadir company could terminate it after 12 years.
On July 15, 1896, the Benadir Society took over the administration of Somalia. Vincenzo Filonardi remained in charge of Somalia as interim administrator until September, after which the experienced businessman who is well versed in local politics left Benadir.
Italian rule was threatened as early as November 1896 when Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia. Consul General and Director of the Benadir Society Antonio Cecchi was fatally wounded in a battle near Lafole . It was not until the following year that it emerged that Cecchi's small force had been attacked not by Ethiopian soldiers but by Somali tribal warriors. Some Arabs, who wanted to keep the advantages acquired under Filonardi, had incited them to do so.
Emilio Dulio became the new director and the Foreign Ministry entrusted Commodore Giorgio Sorrentino with the restoration of order. Sorrentino pacified Somalia forcibly with punitive expeditions against insurgents and the establishment of small military posts ( presidios ), which were manned by Arab mercenaries. Dulio was also officially appointed as governor of Somalia in 1900 after the royal charter was passed by parliament in December 1899.
In addition to the tariff income, the society tried to generate income from agriculture and allocated undeveloped land to penniless day laborers and small farmers from southern Italy. Sugar cane and cotton , in particular, should contribute to Somalia's economy. But the poor peasants had neither sufficient capital nor the necessary knowledge for this form of colonial economy, so that most enterprises failed. Nevertheless, the company showed small profits every year, mainly thanks to the Italian support payments.
The end of the company was brought about by personal disputes between the company's Italian administrators and Governor Dulio. The reason for this was, among other things, the very different salaries of similar administrative posts. Cliques of opponents and supporters of the governor formed. At the end of 1902, opponents of the governor complained that slavery was not prevented, but tolerated, and in some cases even promoted by Italian officials. For example, Italian officers bought slave girls in order to sexually exploit them. In order to avoid an uprising by the Arabs, Dulio had renounced the pursuit of slave traders. Although no action was taken against the governor in Italy, the allegations from the ranks of the administrative officials severely disturbed trust between the government in Rome and the colonial administration. At the end of 1903 the Foreign Ministry began negotiations with the Sultan of Zanzibar with the aim of gaining direct Italian rule over Somalia. These negotiations were successfully concluded at the beginning of 1905 and in May Luigi Mercatelli took over the colony as the royal general representative.
Monetary affairs
Two different currencies were in circulation in what is now Somalia towards the end of the 19th century. Arab traders mainly used the Indian silver rupee and the Maria Theresa thaler was in use for trade with Inner Africa . Filonardi issued the first 5 rupee banknote in 1893. The Benadir Society made no use of their coin shelf and used the Indian rupee, which was divided into 64 besa according to the Ethiopian model. A besa corresponded to an Italian centimo, so in 1902/03 the Benadir Society tried to introduce Italian 25 centesimi coins, which corresponded to one sixth of a Maria Theresa thaler. Since these were not widely accepted, Italian coins were not used any further.
Postal service
The Benadir Society is still known today among philatelists who deal with Somalia's postage stamps. In November 1903, the Benadir Society set up the first postal service in Brava, Itala , Merca, Mogadishu, Obbia and Warsheikh. For this purpose, postage stamps with the inscription Poste Italiane Benadir and depicting elephant or lion heads were created. The stamps carry a currency in Indian rupees and their sub-units Anna and Besa. After the introduction of the lira currency in 1905, the large stocks of Benadir stamps were used up by the Italian Somalia and Italian Eritrea postal administrations until 1926 with new value overprints.
literature
- Scott Rhymer: The Reluctant Imperialist: Italian Colonization in Somalia. 132 S., 2005. (PDF; 663 kB)
Web links
- Brief History of Somalia , Retrieved August 25, 2013
- La Colonia italiana del Benadir (PDF; 2.1 MB) Article from Natura e Arte from 1897/98 (Italian), accessed on August 26, 2013
Individual evidence
- ^ Problemi per La Compagnia Benadir. L'Economista italiano. Vol. 1903, April edition, pp. 6-7.
- ↑ 5 rupee banknote from V. Filonardi & Co , accessed August 30, 2013
- ↑ Coins of Colonial Africa - Italian Somaliland ( Memento of the original dated December 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Italian Colonial Stamps , accessed August 24, 2013
